{"id":16512,"date":"2025-09-16T01:11:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-mesa-elementary-school-using-cafeteria-scraps-to-feed-pigs-ducks-and-chickens\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:57:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:57:49","slug":"fort-lewis-mesa-elementary-school-using-cafeteria-scraps-to-feed-pigs-ducks-and-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-mesa-elementary-school-using-cafeteria-scraps-to-feed-pigs-ducks-and-chickens\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School using cafeteria scraps to feed pigs, ducks and chickens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School third grader and Green Team member Evy Haille-Lanier, left, helps fellow students deposit their leftover scraps in bins after lunch for the Green Team food waste program. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FORT LEWIS MESA \u2012 The Durango School District\u2019s food waste program, run by students in a group called the Green Team, works to manage waste from school cafeterias and classrooms by collecting leftovers and donating them to local families to feed their pigs, ducks and chickens.<\/p>\n

All district schools are involved in the Green Team program, but Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School is especially prolific in its operation of the program, given the school\u2019s rural location and proximity to many faculty and family farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther schools do it, but we really are the front-runners being out here,\u201d said Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School Principal Jenny Imel.<\/p>\n

More than 70% of students at the school are from low-income families, said Durango School District spokeswoman Karla Sluis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis little elementary has really taken ownership of this cool program,\u201d Sluis said. \u201cSince Breen does include some struggling families, a little thoughtful giving from the school goes a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student Green Team members comb through waste bins and sort food scraps in the cafeteria from lunch. They also collect buckets stored in each classroom for food waste to ensure they\u2019re all in one place and ready for pickup by locals looking to feed their farm animals with the leftovers.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School third grader and Green Team member Brycen Hadden, left, dons rubber gloves to help fellow students sort their leftover scraps after lunch for the Green Team food waste program. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fort
Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School students deposit their leftover scraps in bins after lunch for the Green Team food waste program. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Food waste categories in the cafeteria include meat, cheese, eggs, fruits, veggies, grains and liquids. Ensuring scraps make it into the right bins is a student-run effort.<\/p>\n

\"Camaryn
Camaryn Gjedde, a fifth grader with three years of experience in the Green Team program, shows one of the buckets kept in classrooms to collect leftover food at Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School. The students gather up all the buckets at the end of the day for pickup by community members with farm animals. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Green Team program has been going strong for three years at Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School, and fifth grader Camaryn Gjedde has been a part of the program since its inception.<\/p>\n

She said her favorite part about the program is getting to help the community and feed local animals.<\/p>\n

\"Third
Third grade Green Team members Evy Haille-Lanier, left, Brycen Hadden, center, and Kyrie Robsion prepare for students to line up to deposit their scraps into categorized bins for the Green Team food waste program. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Third grader and Green Team Member Brycen Hadden, who donned rubber gloves to help his fellow students sort scraps in the cafeteria after lunch Friday, said his favorite part about being in the program is getting to go into every classroom at the end of the day to roundup all the buckets.<\/p>\n

According to Hadden, the third graders learn a lot about how to be good Green Team members by watching the experienced fourth and fifth graders.<\/p>\n

Loni Story-House, a nurse at the school, said her pigs love the scraps.<\/p>\n

\u201cPigs love everything,\u201d Story-House said. \u201cThey are very close to humans in their biology. All of the foods that benefit us will benefit them. Having the school scraps really helps with the amount of feed we purchase for our pigs and chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron Reed, Green Team overseer and district manager of custodial services, said the work of the Green Team students inspires him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are my daily reminder that true change begins with a single idea, and true leadership is leading by example,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI\u2019ve had to roll up my sleeves and participate in their ideas right next to them. It\u2019s been really heartwarming to hear stories about how Green Team\u2019s school projects are carrying over into student\u2019s homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

epond@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

students leading way in district\u2019s food recycling program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,382,1086,155,438,2021,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-animal","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-education","tag-food","tag-fort-lewis-mesa-elementary","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20244,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions\/20244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16512"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}